Editorial: EPA ahead of the tech curve on coal rule

From afar, it may appear that California has no stake in a regulation proposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that all new coal-fueled power plants employ carbon capture-and-storage technology.

After all, coal currently accounts for less than 1 percent of electricity generated in the Golden State, according the California Energy Commission. And even that tiny percentage is more likely to decrease, rather than increase, in coming years.

Yet, California does have at least an indirect stake in the EPA’s regulation of new coal-fueled plants. Because not only has the federal regulatory agency proposed strict limits on emissions of carbon dioxide for new coal plants, it also has presumed to mandate the technology those new plants must use to meet the limit.

Indeed, if federal regulators can dictate technology to the coal industry – for which, we suspect, most Californians have little empathy – it can just as easily dictate technology to industries Californians very much care about.

Imagine, for instance, if, say the Federal Communications Commission had imposed a regulation mandating that telecommunications companies had to employ the digital technology called Time Division Multiple Access.

California-based Qualcomm may never have introduced Code Division Multiple Access, which was a game changer in the development of now-ubiquitous smart phones.

Perhaps, carbon capture and storage eventually will prove a breakthrough technology, like CDMA. But it clearly has not reached that point as yet, as industry experts attest.

“First-generation carbon capture sequestration technology on a commercially deployable scale is not likely to be available until 2020,” said Platt’s Energy Policy.

“There’s not a market right now where electricity can be competitively generated using carbon capture,” said Emil Salazar, market analyst with SBI technology.

Currently, there are five major U.S. projects underway using carbon capture-and-storage technology, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Of those five, only one, in Kemper County, Miss., is even under construction.

The Kemper County plant can use carbon capture for enhanced oil recovery on the fields surrounding it. But, ACCCE points out, the project “is not easily replicated in other parts of the country.”

EPA administrator Gina McCarthy acknowledged as much when she announced her agency’s proposed regulation of new coal-fueled plants. The Kemper plant probably isn’t “a good model,” she said, “if you’re wondering if CCS is going to be cost effective and available.”

Yet, EPA is moving full speed ahead with proposed regulations that would require new coal-fueled plants throughout the country to use technology that may work under certain circumstances – like proximity to oil fields – in certain parts of the country – like Mississippi.

That’s why it’s not just the coal industry that accuses the Obama administration of declaring “war on coal,” and not just Republicans on Capitol Hill who agree with the industry, but also Democratic lawmakers who bear no malice toward either the president or his EPA chief.

“While we are all hopeful for the future of carbon capture-and-sequestration technology to reduce and store emissions, it has not yet been proven in an industrial setting,” said Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

“Never before has the federal government forced an industry to do something that is technologically impossible,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia.

We understand the Obama administration’s determination to reduce the carbon emissions of the nation’s coal-fueled power plants. But mandating that the coal industry adopt a technology that has not as yet proven viable and cost-effective is simply terrible regulatory policy.

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